Spatial and temporal development of emissions from an exploding mercury jet

The development of visible emissions from an exploding mercury jet, which could be used as a unique high current opening switch, have been detailed, framing pictures have verified that the expanding luminous front produced by the exploding jet maintains its cylindrical symmetry throughout the most intense period of visible emission. The luminous front expands at a constant rate of 5×10³ m/s over the ≈300 ns interval during which the explosion occurs. Afterwards, the expansion rate is a nearly constant 1.5×10³ m/s. Consideration of the Bennett-pinch condition suggest that this velocity can be used to estimate an ion/neutral temperature of 18000 K. Temperatures have been calculated from temporally and spatially resolved spectra. At the onset of the explosion, spectral emissions approximating blackbody radiation yielded a temperature of ≈7200 K. Line emissions mere used to determine the radial temperature profile. Temperature measurements were used to estimate the percent ionization in the plasma column